


The price we pay for survival

by MariaPurt



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: AU, Angst, Doctor Abby Griffin, Drama, Eventual Smut, F/M, Grounder!Abby, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-01-04 10:17:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12166935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MariaPurt/pseuds/MariaPurt
Summary: AU where Abby is a grounder. She was never on the Ark so the bracelets were never invented and the 100 was never sent. Instead, Marcus Kane comes to Earth with other volunteers.





	1. Abigail

 

“We got one!” someone shouts from the gates as a squad walks into Arkadia, and Marcus Kane shoots a look at them before nodding to the few people sitting at a table: they can continue without him.

“I gave a clear order not to engage,” Marcus hisses as he approaches the squad. “You were only supposed to pick up our dead, major”. He looks at a bloody figure that hangs on the soldier’s arms: it’s hard to tell who they have, but this is the first time they’ve actually got a grounder alive. Kane comes a step closer. It could be a trap. Or it could be luck. He doesn’t believe in luck though.

“We didn’t, sir,” Major Byrne lowers her head and nods towards the grounder: whoever he or she is, it doesn’t look like that creature is conscious. The grounder hangs with a head bowed and messy hair stained in blood covering face and neck. “She was hiding next to the spot”.

“This looks fresh.” Marcus comes near and presses a finger to the grounder’s ribcage. Dark blood runs across his finger, and he raises his eyes, waiting to hear an explanation. None comes. “Did it… did she resist?” for a moment he’s not sure how to call the creature. Major shakes her head negatively. Still, no explanation comes. “Take her to medical,” he says, turning away and quickly walking back to the table. They still have a lot of things to discuss before he can call the Council meeting adjourned.

 

* * *

 

It’s been two weeks since they landed on Earth. Fourteen times Kane saw a sunset and thirteen times he saw a sunrise. He didn’t look at it, he knows he’s seen it though. He’s also seen his people killed off, dozen by dozen. They call those creatures ‘grounders’, not completely sure what they really are. Some of them seem to look like humans, some don’t, but so far none of them could be talked to. Those who tried putting down the weapon and suggesting to stop fighting were killed the very moment the gun touched the ground.

“How soon can we question her?” Marcus asks, watching over a figure strapped to a gurney. This one looks human. Uncertain, he touches her forehead, moves his hand to her neck, shoulder, down the ribcage, presses the belly and a hip. He wonders if others are the same, hidden behind ugly masks made of mutated animal’s sculls and teeth.

“The injuries are pretty bad,” he hears behind his back and turns to face the doctor. “I’ve stitched her up and sedated. Whoever did this, meant to finish her,” he finishes, showing a panel to Kane. Kane nods. The doctor rubs his own bruised cheek: they had a rough landing. It’s hard to find a single person in the camp who’s not been injured.

“Thank you, Jackson,” Kane glances at the grounder one last time. Jackson’s right: even if she attacked his soldiers, they’d not cut her like this. These cuts are small and they are too many. For a few seconds he wonders what’s happened, then he goes back to work.

 

* * *

 

They need more food. They need water. Every second time they go to get either of those they’re attacked by huge animals that one could confuse for people. Getting to Mount Weather (which was supposed to be their go-to source of food, ammunition and basic life amenities) is simply out of question: it's too far from where they've landed... They still need food and water.

Marcus wonders if maybe there was another way. He knows there wasn’t: after the riot the only thing that could calm people down was a one way ticket to Earth, survivable or not. They’d kill each other otherwise. Damn you, Jake, he thinks again and again every time he remembers the Ark; damn you. It got ugly, much uglier than anyone could expect: hearing they only had a few more months of air made people go insane. It made them bloodthirsty. If only Jake had talked to someone – anyone – before going public, they’d not lose so many lives in the riot. They’d find a way to be civilized, Kane thinks, and then he admits that they’d also have no idea the Earth was survivable.

They’d not be forced to go down now, and by the time their great-great-grand children would finally land (if humanity survived that long, of course), the grounder civilization would’ve developed and they’d stand no chance against it. Even now their chances are rather slim.

Late at night Kane looks at the sky as if trying to see the Ark. He knows there’s been another riot after the exodus ship survived the landing. He knows there is a new chancellor, again, for the second time in just a month. He knows that this one won’t stand too long either – he’ll probably face the fate of Jaha and his other predecessor (whose name Marcus doesn’t even remember). At least now, with seven hundred people gone to the ground, the arkers have enough time to fix the air. That is, if they don’t kill each other in the process.

If things continue like this here on Earth, those people up in the sky might be the only ones left alive after all. Kane hopes it won’t come to that. He hopes there is a way to make peace with the grounders.

 

* * *

 

“Have you regretted volunteering, Jackson?” Kane asks, entering the medical. The young man turns to face him and shakes his head.

“You needed a doctor on the ground,” he responds after a second. Kane nods. They did. But he was still surprised to see how many of the essential personnel volunteered – engineers, scientists, soldiers... If the Earth turned out not to be survivable, they’d all be killed by radiation, essential or not.

Kane walks to the gurney and looks at the grounder prisoner. She’s awake but obviously tries to hide it: with her eyes closed, her pupils are moving as if she’s trying to see through her eyelids. Kane knows she hears him, he knows she’s listening.

“Do you understand our language?” he asks, standing above her head and attentively looking at her face: he wants to spot any change.

“She’s still high on painkillers,” Jackson steps in, injecting the woman with gray liquid.

Perhaps wasting their meds on a grounder isn’t such a great idea, Marcus thinks to himself.

“How soon can she be questioned?” he asks, and Jackson hides his hands into the pockets, stepping from one foot to another uncomfortably.

“Uh… She can probably answer questions… I mean, if they speak our language, she can. But she’s – she’s lost too much blood for… for questioning… I wouldn’t advice…” Kane shoots him a look, and Jackson stops talking. Marcus can’t say he’s surprised by the doctor’s reaction. If they are going to survive here on Earth, Jackson’s got a lot to learn about the price they’ll pay for staying alive. He turns to the gurney again, sighs and puts his hand on the woman’s bandaged shoulder:

“Do you hear me?” he asks, slowly pressing into the wound – not enough to make it bleed, but apparently enough for the grounder to react. She hisses and bites her lower lip, trembles a little, then slowly opens her eyes, looking straight ahead as if Marcus isn’t there. “Do you understand me?” he presses harder, and she winces, turning her head to the side to look at Jackson. Jackson freezes. Marcus repeats the question.

“Please,” Jackson steps closer, covering Kane’s hand with his own, “She might not even understand what’s happening just yet”.

“Please,” they hear a quiet female voice repeat and they freeze. Kane takes away his hand, and the woman jerks, visibly in pain.

“What is your name?” he asks, pushing Jackson to the side with his own body. The woman blinks a few times but remains silent. “Do you know where you are?” She blinks again. “Do you understand me?” Nothing changes. Kane bites his cheek, irritated.

“Ab… Ab…” the woman repeats several times. She looks around as if trying to find something. Kane glances at the belt that keeps her neck attached to the gurney: this grounder wouldn’t be able to move even if she was not sedated. He bends closer to her face, attempting to hear her whispers. “Abigail,” she breathes out and moves uncomfortably on the gurney.


	2. Please, don’t!

“Abigail,” she repeats after a few seconds, her wet eyes locked on Marcus’ face. And then she rolls them and coughs; her body starts shaking wildly. Jackson rushes to her side, checking the pulse. He unfastens the belts on her neck, shoulders and one arm and silently – but very quickly – nods to Kane for assistance: they flip the woman’s body to a side enough for Jackson to inspect her back. Her legs remain bound. Her movements become stronger.

The gurney appears to be covered in blood.

“Damn it!” Jackson yells, pressing his palm to the small of her back and then calls for the nurse. “This wasn’t bleeding before,” he comments to answer an unspoken question of his Chancellor. Marcus nods: he’d imagine it must be hard to tend to all the cuts when there are at least fifty of them, most still covered with dried blood and dirt.

He watches Jackson and the nurse cut off the remaining cloths of the prisoner. The grounder cries out when a nurse presses a cloth with alcohol to the bleeding wound.

“We need more stitches,” the nurse says under her breath as she presses the trembling figure of the grounder woman down to the gurney. Abigail still tries to fight: with her left arm free, she waves it chaotically, almost hitting the syringe Jackson uses to inject her.

“How much can we actually use?” doctor asks once the prisoner passively falls onto a gurney. Her struggling has opened up three more wounds on the back.

“We need her alive,” Marcus answers with signs of irritation. It vanishes the moment they start removing dirt and blood from the prisoner’s body: there can’t be less than a hundred cuts on her flesh, all different shapes and depth. Jackson stiched up the bleeders, but actually taking care of all of her wounds will take much longer. As the nurse washes them with a mix of alcohol and water, Kane grimaces: saving this grounder takes way too much recourse. It better be worth it.

 

* * *

 

“Every day we wait, our people get killed by the grounders, sir,” Major Byrne walks into Kane’s office and he immediately knows what she wants to hear. He puts away the map and gets up. Major comes closer, her voice gives up her nervousness. “We can’t just wait till she recovers; it might take forever given her injuries.”

“So you would rather kill her right away?” he smiles bitterly. It’s been two days since the grounder prisoner first woke up, but she’s been too weak to be talked to. They tried, of course, but that didn’t get them anywhere. Every time Jackson thought she was stable, the prisoner proved him wrong and went into a cardiac arrest.

“No, sir,” she responds dryly, folding her hands on the chest, “but we are running low on water, so we’ll have to go out again soon…” He knows. He wishes they’d find a way to communicate with the woman they have in the medical. But they are forced to keep her sedated most of the time: when she wakes up she's too disoriented and obviously in too much pain and if they inject her with stronger painkillers, she becomes too agitated. “Have you heard from the Ark, sir?” Byrne suddenly changes the topic, and it takes Marcus a moment to realize what she’s asking about. He might be a Chancellor here on the ground, but the real one is still up there, and as loyal as Byrne is to her superior officer, she still needs to know the chain of command.

“They’ve split their resources last time we talked. It seems like they might be able to arrange one more drop ship to get more time to fix the air.”

He hopes they do, but then he wonders how they are going to choose who gets to go. The last time it was simple: nobody knew if the Earth was survivable, so it came down to whoever felt like going. This time things are different.

 

* * *

 

Marcus watches the woman on a gurney as the doctor and a nurse wake her up: this is the fifth time they do it since they got her. He does hope it’ll finally work: at least, this time Jackson sounds much more optimistic (he made a mixture of low effect sedative and painkillers that should keep her awake and lucid, yet, not let her suffer too much). Her naked body is all covered with stitches and bandages, and then a pale blanket lies on top of that.

Abigail slowly moves her head and opens her eyes. She seems disoriented.

“Please, don’t!” she cries out when she spots Jackson approaching with a syringe. He gives Kane a wondering look. Kane nods and the syringe is put aside.

“Why?” Kane asks, not sure what it is he wants to know. Is she just afraid of an unknown or does she actually know what injections do to her and she doesn’t like it? (They haven't given her anything but painkillers and sedatives though, so he doesn't see what she's got to complain about). “You speak our language, don’t you?” he continues when she doesn’t respond. Her eyes are moving from Kane to Jackson, then onto the nurse and then back onto Kane. He takes a deep breath and walks closer. Perhaps the mixture Jackson injected her with isn't working and they do need to give her that second dosage of anesthetic.

“You didn’t kill me…” she speaks, her voice breaking and barely audible. “How?..”

Kane raises his eyebrows. The woman’s breath is heavy and she bites her lips every few seconds even though she’s not supposed to be in any pain at the moment.

“You will stay alive if you answer my questions.” He says it slowly, word after word, not fully sure whether she understands him. She blinks. Marcus glances at Jackson, but the doctor offers no comment.

“You didn’t go through all the trouble of fighting for my life just to kill me…” the grounder whispers, barely moving her bruised lips, and Kane smirks. She hears him and – perhaps – understands more than he’d want her to.

“So you do speak our language,” Marcus stretches his lips into what someone might mistake for a smile. It’s not. He’s not amused. He’s tense and he almost feels like he’s been played, even though it’s clear there could be no play there. “Who are you?”

“Why did you save me?” she answers with a question and tries to move her arm. It’s strapped to a gurney, so there isn’t much she can do. Abigail jerks her arm again: the belt digs into the bandage covering the wrist.

“Stop that,” Kane motions towards her moving arm, “or he’ll have to sedate you again. You seem to not want that, correct?” She freezes, drilling him with her eyes.

“Won’t your people kill you?” she murmurs, shifting her body under the blanket – she can’t move too much, just an inch or two, the belts aren’t too tight but they are there, guarding her shoulders and legs to prevent her from hurting herself.

“For what?”

“Saving the enemy,” she licks her lips and grimaces in disgust.

“Would yours?” She moves her head a little only to realize there is a belt on her neck. Marcus can guess she’s tried to nod. “Is that what’s happened to you?” It’s a hunch, he admits, but the more he tries to understand why or how she could’ve gotten all these cuts, the more he thinks it must’ve been a punishment of some sort. That, and the fact that they are still missing three dead bodies; presumably dead, he corrects himself. They don’t really know if those people were really killed.

“Water… Please…” Abigail gives as a response.

“Answer my question… Please,” he retorts with yet another smirk. “Did you capture our soldiers alive? Answer me!” he shouts and clenches his hands into fists.

“Just one, but he was beyond saving. I…” she notices Jackson coming from behind Marcus, “I did what I could, I…” her eyes roll once again. Jackson grabs a flashlight and checks them. Pupils are dilated and what seems to be a little trembling quickly turns into a seizure.

It takes them two more strokes to understand that the prisoner is allergic to painkillers they're using.


	3. You don’t have to do this

It is a few hours after the squad returns, carrying two injured men, when Marcus finds himself staring at his lead doctor and not being able to understand what’s wrong. Jackson is obviously out of breath and seems to be agitated and frightened, and when he rushes into the Chancellor’s office, Marcus assumes the worst: one or both of his people who’s been brought in injured are now dead.

They’re not though. That is the first thing he asks and that is the first thing to be answered.

“She’s going to kill her!” Jackson shouts. Kane gives him a concerned look, not yet sure what it might be about. “The grounder prisoner…” doctor adds and that is when Kane rushes into the corridor. However the woman managed the escape from her restraints, he still wants her alive. He just hopes he’ll get there before she kills someone. He doesn’t ask who it is Jackson believes Abigail might go after. From what Marcus has already learnt she’s a doctor herself, so he hopes he's right about her. She’s a grounder though, and grounders haven’t done anything but kill his people so far.

Walking as fast as humanly possible, Marcus pulls out a gun. Jackson almost runs behind him.

It’s the screams that catch Marcus by surprise as he approaches the Medical. Female cries full of agony reach his ears twice before he gets to the door. As he enters the room, Kane’s eyes widen in shock and he stops for a moment, taking in what he’s seeing. It’s absolutely not what he’s expected.

Major Byrne stands above the gurney, her baton out and sparkling with electricity. The prisoner is still bound, now with a blanket tossed aside and her bare body only covered with bandages. She’s crying, and sobbing, and screaming, pulling against restraints as the major moves her baton along the wounded torso, a quiet humming sound of electricity fills the silence between screams.

“Major!” Marcus yells, only then realizing he doesn’t just sound angry. He sounds worried. The major puts away the baton and takes a step back. Before Kane knows it he finds himself walking to the gurney much faster than he should, his eyes locked on the Major. If he could kill with just a look, Byrne probably would be dead now. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he hisses, putting his hand onto the prisoner’s forehead as if trying to soothe her. She’s still quivering, pressing the belts on her neck and wrists deep into the skin. Kane takes a deep breath. Their prisoner might've not given them anything useful just yet, but she has made it pretty clear she was opposed to violence, and he was hoping to gain her trust rather than fear.

Afraid she might suffocate herself, Marcus unties the belt on her neck.

Abigail moans quietly and takes a deep breath. For a moment Marcus thinks he sees her trying to say something because she opens her mouth and moves her lips. No sound comes out though. He shoots a look at the major with a metal “I’ll deal with you later.”

Marcus fixes the blanket back onto the grounder’s body and then checks up on the two injured guards lying on gurneys.

“I was under the impression their injuries weren’t this bad,” he comments, noticing how pale the patients are. Their faces are sweaty and he can see dark veins through the skin.

A barely audible noise distracts him and forces to turn around.

“I…” Abigail whispers and pulls her hands against restraints as hard as she can. It’s clear she has trouble making her tongue obey, and as Marcus walks closer, she’s still repeating the only sound she’s managed so far: “I…”

He glances at Byrne as if wanting to hear her take on what the prisoner might have to say. Everybody keeps quiet for a few seconds, and then Marcus orders the major out of the medical and off duty till tomorrow. He doesn’t want to go any further, but she’s disobeyed his direct order and there’s no telling what else she might do.

Byrne doesn’t move.

“I can help,” Abigail says surprisingly loud, though barely understandable through coughing and sobbing. For a moment everyone in the room freezes to look at her. Kane nods, inviting her to continue. “I can help you save them,” she repeats, squeezing her eyes shut and biting her lip till it starts to bleed.

“How do I know you’re not gonna kill my people, Abigail?” Kane hides his hands in the pockets. He’s pretty certain she doesn’t mean any harm, but then with the major looking at him, unmasked hate on her face, he needs their prisoner to say it.

“Abby,” she breathes out, moving her head from side to side and visibly enjoying the freedom her neck now has. “They will die. It’s poison.”

 

* * *

 

Freeing a prisoner like this is not a risk he wouldn't take to save his people, and seeing how Abby can barely lift herself up from the gurney he doubts there is any risk at all. But should something happen, major Byrne has a permission to shoot. Kane hopes it won't come to that. Abby can’t stand on her own, so he holds her still. She winces just once as he extends his arm to wrap it around her ribcage for better support. Then she stops noticing him at all: she’s too concentrated on the two men lying on the gurneys. Her hands, shaky and uncertain at first, are suddenly precise and sharp. She wondrously looks at the scalpel for a few seconds, apparently not being used to this particular tool, but finds her way with it rather fast. She cuts the flesh and draws blood. The robe they’ve hurriedly put on her before walking her to the gurneys quickly gets covered with red stains.

“This will slow it down, but we don't have much time,” having made several cuts around the arrow wounds, she finally says, her voice shaky and her feet almost crumbling. If it wasn’t for Markus, she’d fall. “I can make the antidote if your people…”

“Which one?” Jackson quickly runs to the table and picks up a handful of small bottles. Markus knows these: they found them on every grounder they’d killed. But until now they could only guess what they were for. The liquids inside are all different colors, and Abby slowly smells each of them, one after another, before nodding to herself and pointing at a muddy vial.

“Make her drink it first, sir,” they hear Byrne’s voice as she approaches the other gurney. The grounder waves her head negatively.

“If they don't drink it, they'll die, and there won’t be enough for both of them if I take any…”

“It’s your call, Chancellor,” Jackson pleads, squeezing the bottle as tight as he can.

Marcus can make her drink half of it and save one life; or save both lives; or kill both of his people if this Abby's motives are not as pure as he hopes. He doesn't see what she's got to gain should these two men die, but years of service kick in, and Kane cannot allow himself blind trust. He feels the grounder shift in his arms and she visibly starts to feel weaker. He tightens his grip and she moans quietly.

“I’m sorry,” Markus breathes into her ear and extends his hand. Jackson gives him the bottle. “I have to be sure. You said you could make more if needed. Now drink.”

“I will need herbs from outside,” Abby protests. “Your people will have to find them.”

Kane knows what she says. Someone can get hurt again. The way she insists on not drinking the potion makes him even firmer though.

"Drink!" he growls and, still having his arm wrapped around her body, presses his fingers into Abby's flesh where he knows she's been tased. She grits her teeth but makes no sound.

Abby turns her head to face him, half in disbelief, half irritated. Her feverish breath burns Kane's cheek. The vial trembles as her fingers flip it open.

“You don’t have to do this,” she states and waits a few seconds to see if he changes his mind. He doesn't. She sighs and sips.


	4. You will not let me leave alive

Walking is not something Abby enjoys. Her leg refuses to heal and it’s still hard for her to stand up, but she's been moving around the medical (with guards' supervision and Jackson always being there of course) for the past several days, helping to identify poisons and antidotes, and Kane hopes a longer stroll might be a better way for them to talk than just sitting and sipping water in Medical. Passing through the dark corridors, he glances at her every few seconds to make sure she’s still fine. She limps visibly, nervously digging her fingernails into a cane with every step, but she does look better. With her hair washed and braided by the nurse and clean - even though almost worn out - clothes from the Ark on Abby's body, she looks absolutely... normal. Kane smirks to himself: if he was ever to meet her like this, he'd never even suspect Abby wasn't one of theirs... The moment they walk out into the sun, Abby shakes and suddenly stops, trying to cover her eyes with a hand and almost loosing balance. Kane quickly grabs her by the upper hand to keep her from falling.

She nods in appreciation, but says nothing.

“I know what this means,” Abby whispers after a few seconds, staring at the yard of Arkadia. Marcus gives her a curious look, and she continues. “You showing me your village means you will not let me leave alive.”

“Where would you go?” Kane laughs. “No, this means I trust you.” He pauses, nodding to himself and looking beyond the wall. “I want peace for all of us, and I want you to help me get it.”

“Peace is not something you… get,” Abby responds with a barely audible disdain. She takes a few steps forward, taking in the view, and then closes her eyes, visibly enjoying the sun on her eyelids. Marcus can’t blame her for that, he can’t relate to it either. He grew up and spent most of his life without this luxury.

“From the looks of it, I’d say that peace is an unfamiliar concept for your people…” he responds thoughtfully, slowly walking alongside Abby. This is the first time they’re out, but they’ve already had this conversation. He knows how it usually ends, but perhaps, this gesture will make difference. “We are people, no different from you,” he continues and motions towards men building a house a dozen meters away.

"You came with guns and you started killing us like animals," Abby says in a matter-of-fact tone and turns to face him.

"But you attacked us first!"

"You had guns," she repeats, and Kane is about to ask her how things would be different if they didn't, but...

“It’s your fault!” he suddenly hears a male voice from behind. Kane turns to face the speaker only to see a guard pointing a gun at him. At Abby, he momentarily corrects himself, raising his eyebrows, confused. “Your people killed her!” the guard yells, and with Kane’s “Stand down” not even being pronounced the gun fires twice.

Kane curses himself for his own reaction: he shouldn’t have done this, his impulse was too fast, much faster than his mind: he shouldn’t have placed himself in the line of fire trying to protect the grounder. Abby is not that valuable to them, and without him his people are not likely to survive. He needs to be alive, and yet, he finds himself pressing a palm to a wound: one of the bullets hit him just between the ribs. He can’t quite tell where the other one went: the pain is bad, his vision blurs.

“Don’t!” Marcus shouts when he notices major Byrne pressing a gun to the shooter’s head. Not like that. They don’t kill their own people. There are too little of them left to waste a single life. No one is to be blamed for hating the grounders: they’ve killed off too many. Marcus grits his teeth and straightens up, pushing away someone’s supportive hand from his shoulder. “I’m fine,” he hisses when Jackson tries to check his injury. “Shocklashes, ten! Now!” Kane barks and steps towards the guard, who is now pinned to the ground.

He then looks at Abby: she’s not moving, frozen as if fearing to provoke the crowd. She leans on her cane, now more than before, violently pressing her fingers into the wood. Staring into Kane’s face she keeps silent as if waiting for him to address her, nervously looking around; expecting someone else to attack, Marcus notes to himself before stepping closer to her.

“You shouldn’t have,” Abby says with just her lips, but he’s already speaking.

“This woman is our prisoner!” Kane announces, nodding at Abby for everybody to look at her. “And we will treat our prisoners with respect! We are not animals! Not animals…” he repeats quieter, feeling the pain in his ribcage increase. Kane dismisses Jackson with a look and slowly walks towards the poles where the attacker is already strapped with his arms spread wide open.

Kane hears his people quietly whisper, some surprised, some angry. He also catches Abby say something as she follows him to the poles, obviously not knowing what else to do. He stops a few steps from the poles, face stoned with anger and pain.

Abby follows and stops right behind him. He would prefer not to have his back to a grounder, but he’s barely standing on his feet, so for a moment he allows it. It feels as if she reads his mind though, because in just a second Abby moves, stepping to his side, and gives him a questioning look expecting… approval? He’s not sure, he’s too focused on standing still and not showing how bad his injury is.

“Proceed,” he hisses through his teeth, and the humming sound interrupts the silence just a moment before the man screams out in agony. “Again,” Marcus orders, and another cry seems to be even louder. The attacker pulls against the belts holding his hands. Kane catches a curious look on Abby’s face. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think she is amused. “Again!” he repeats, feeling his knees tremble. He’s losing blood, he feels he’s about to collapse as the adrenalin wears off. He glances around to see that everyone’s eyes are locked on the man screaming every time his body gets tased.

“Marcus,” Abby whispers barely audible somewhere near, almost next to his ear. He no longer sees what’s going on, but he feels her arms wrap around his chest. There is a sound of her cane dropping against the rocks, and then he knows he’s falling too: slower than he’d expect as Abby struggles to keep him up with her arms. Kane’s too heavy though, and she can’t hold him. She probably wouldn’t be able to hold his weight even if she wasn’t injured herself, but she is, and they fall together; her knees bump into the ground and his head softly lands on Abby’s lap. She cries out, louder this time, she hurts and she’s worried.

 

* * *

 

When he opens his eyes, the pain is gone. Marcus finds himself on a gurney, attached to the tubes and a breathing mask.

“Your healer says your lungs were hit,” he suddenly hears a female voice and feels like jumping in shock, except he cannot even move, too dozed with painkillers and whatever else Jackson thought was needed. “You are people, no different from us,” the voice continues with a smirk, and Marcus struggles to focus his eyes on her. It’s Abby, he knows her voice, but he is surprised she’s been allowed to stay next to him unsupervised.

Kane rolls his head slightly to the side to look at her, a response sharp on his tongue. They are nothing like the grounders, but then he bites his lip to stay silent. He sees Abby sitting in an armchair, her ankles cuffed to the chair legs and her right hand lies on a table, bandaged. With her sleeve rolled up, several bruises and cuts are visible. For a few moments there is no one else in the room. Marcus remains silent. Abby takes a cup with her left hand, sips and leans back in the armchair, tiredly closing her eyes. He looks at a tube attached to her bandaged arm; they’re taking her blood, and from the looks of it, she’s given up quite a lot.

“You have a rare type of blood, Chancellor,” Jackson interrupts his thoughts, appearing from nowhere. “Our guest here suggested I test hers, and it was a match, otherwise I’m not sure we’d have enough to fix you.”

“So you saved me?” Marcus asks, slowly bringing his tongue to move. It feels sore and much bigger than it should. He cannot quite say if he’s grateful. If he was to die, his people would probably lynch Abby. They don’t care that she’s saved two of their men or mapped safe passages to bring water and food. They care how many her people have killed. And he’s pretty sure she knows it. She looks pale though. With her eyes closed and her arms trembling, she seems especially small. Kane clenches his hands into fists fighting a sudden urge to feel sorry for her, but it’s too late.


	5. His heart is failing

Medical is small, there’s not enough space to keep two patients separated from each other. And there are more than just two anyway. It has been suggested to move Chancellor to a different place and even to his own quarters, but Marcus disagreed: they only have one doctor and taking that doctor all for himself is too selfish. The bullet wound is still bad, so being unsupervised is out of question as well.

Major Byrne insists, and the guards are placed in the Medical. It’s bad enough, she says, that the grounder prisoner and the Chancellor are in the same room. What’s worse, she adds, the man who almost killed Kane is there too.

Kane dismisses her worries: both the attacker and the grounder are bound to their gurneys with straps and shackles. Moreover, Marcus would vouch for Abby, and the other guy doesn’t even seem to be getting up any time soon. In fact, the guard who attacked Marcus is getting worse.

“His heart is failing,” Abby explains to Marcus one morning. It’s Kane’s third day in Medical, and the first one when he feels lucid and isn’t hallucinating on painkillers. He pushes himself up on the bed, sits and winces as his bullet wound is disturbed. A moment later his all attention is where the injured guard lies. Concerned, Kane watches Jackson and a nurse trying to help.

And then he sees the expression on Abby’s face: the guard’s not going to make it.

Marcus shivers and suddenly feels pain in his entire body: he killed that guy, whether he deserved it or not; Kane swore to himself to not kill his own people, and he killed him. The sentence shouldn’t have been so brutal. Ten shocklashes are too many, and the guard did what most people in the camp wanted to: kill the grounder. The fact that the bullet hit Marcus was Marcus’s fault, not the guard’s. And it’s now Marcus’s fault that man is going to die.

“You couldn’t have known, Marcus,” as if reading his thoughts, Abby says softly. “He probably had a condition long before it all happened…”

“You don’t know that! You have no idea what electrical power does to a human body, this technology isn’t…” he closes his eyes, trying to remember if the guard has any family, either here on the ground or up on the Ark. He swears under his breath: there’s a wife and a son, he’s seen them just once, but he remembers them too well now. The small boy wouldn’t let go of his father’s arm, so the mother had to pull him away. He was crying when the first ship was boarding for Earth.

“Yes. I do,” she replies rather calm, firm. “I’ve experienced it, remember? Courtesy of your major,” she adds and her lips curve nervously.

“You always have an answer for everything, don’t you?” he laughs bitterly, and she rolls her eyes but never gives him a response. She’s still weak after the blood loss. They barely talk that day, Marcus is mostly asleep, and when he’s awake, he watches her across the room. She’s in and out.

Towards the evening the guard falls into a coma, and it takes all the mental strength Marcus has to forbid further treatment. Enough is enough, they’ve used too many resources on a lost cause.

He’s a Chancellor and he’s got to think about his people rather than his own guilty conscience.

The night is long: it’s the dying man’s moaning and whispers and cries that keep Marcus awake even though he feels absolutely exhausted. He lies on his gurney and watches the ceiling, avoiding looking at either of the patients. He can hear Abby crying in her sleep too – barely audible, more like a whimper.

Early in the morning the guard dies. Marcus hears Jackson say it, he hears them move the body, but he no longer has strength to lift his eyelids. He’s fast asleep, visions of the dead man’s wife and kid following him to the floating dock as he finds himself kissing Abby back on the Ark. She stabs the child with a knife and then kisses Marcus again, and for a moment he doesn’t see what’s going on. Someone’s hand presses a big red button. Float them, float them, float them, he hears, and then he jerks and wakes up, confused and somewhat ashamed look on his face. Since when is he thinking about their prisoner this way? Since when is he dreaming about her after just killing one of their own?

“You cried in your sleep,” Marcus whispers to Abby as soon as the doctor finishes checking his vitals. He sees Abby’s wide awake, but she chooses not to look at him. She chuckles.

“You did too,” Abby murmurs uncomfortably, and Marcus frowns.

At least that explains why Abby’s avoiding eye contact with him. Whatever he said – and he clearly remembers what he was dreaming about – must’ve sounded wrong. He’s still confused about his dream. It came out of nowhere and that bothers his feverish mind. Asking what it was that he said would be just digging a deeper grave for his pride, so he lets it go. Kane knows what prey to go after instead.

“How are you feeling?”

“In pain, but it’s bearable,” Abby responds softly, still not looking at him. “I’ve asked your doctor not to give me painkillers,” she licks her lips.

“Is that a way to punish yourself?” Marcus is not completely sure what he’s asking. He knows deep down that pain is what he would really appreciate right now, because it would give him some kind of an anchor.

“Do you think I deserve to be punished?” Abby retorts, taking Marcus to an uncomfortable place. He thinks for a few moments. ”Or do you think you do?” she continues.

“Why did you save me?” he changes the subject before Abby can push too hard and make him answer. “You gave me blood. Why?”

“Because you’d done it for me,” she says dryly and finally turns her face to him.

 

* * *

 

Two more days pass and both patients are getting better. Deprived of anyone’s company but each other’s, they talk until one or both of them are too tired to argue. That is what they mostly do: argue about anything and everything. And yet, neither of them makes an effort to hide the fact that they enjoy this verbal battle and whatever goes along. Abby tells more and more about grounders. She teaches Kane how to avoid them: where to haunt, what herbs to get and how to do it all without running into her people. Kane tells her stories from the life he had on the Ark: nothing too damning, but he does want her to understand where they come from. They didn't come to Earth to fight and die, they came here searching for survival.

In the entire week that passes none of Kane’s people die or even get injured. It’s a win for him. It’s a win for all of them.

Finally, Abby is healthy enough to be moved out of the Medical. She still limps and her face is bruised, but Jackson says there’s nothing else he can do, and now time will heal her. Having seen the two doctors interact, Marcus can bet that the idea belongs to Abby: she obviously hates being bound to a bed (major Byrne will die before she allows a grounder to be free in the same room with their Chancellor), and it's no surprise. Before the guard shot Marcus and Abby had to donate blood, she was already healthy enough to have her own room, a small one but the one equipped with neither shackles nor bed restraints. Kane sees her relieved face when the armed guards escort her tiny limping figure to her 'cell'... Against doctor’s advice Marcus chooses to move to his own quarters too: he wouldn’t admit it, but he feels bored and lonely in the Medical all by himself. So he goes back to normal life as much as he can, spending a few hours here and there with the prisoner and day by day growing to like her. She’s smart, even too much so. And she’s loyal to the cause she’s chosen. She’s helping him, but never betrays her own people. This kind of loyalty intrigues Kane. He respects that about her. And he likes the way she always brings everything back to the choices they all make.

“I want to ask you something,” he says once, after a rather unpleasant conversation with Jackson: they're running low on medical supplies, and while right now it doesn't seem like they need much, things can change very fast. Abby looks at him, patiently as always, waiting. It's when he says something she disagrees with that she attacks him with all her verbal power, but until then she remains quiet, smiling, curious. He pulls out a map and puts it onto the floor. "We're here," he points to where Arkadia is. "And here..." he moves his fingers up, "there's a mountain. A hundred years ago there was a bunker, a nuclear bunker where people would store things," regardless of how much trust there is between them, he's watching her reaction, he's trying not to say too much. On top of medications and food supplies there are supposed to be more guns, and other weapons. Kane hopes they're not going to need them, but it would be nice to have them nonetheless. "It's called Mount Weather. It has things we desperately need, medications, clothes... How can we get there without meeting your people?" He keeps it to himself that they've already tried it and failed.

Abby frowns perplexedly and then shakes her head.

"I'm sorry," her voice is low and unsure. "But there's nothing there. It'd been ruined before I was even born, I'm so sorry, but whatever might've been in there... It's gone, Marcus."

He curses under his breath. Their only hope is now the second drop ship from the Ark that - expectantly - will bring down some equipment. There better be enough engineers on that ship too: the way Kane understands the way things work on the ground, very soon it's going to be too cold to survive without heating and for that they need more power than what they currently have. He hates himself for not asking about Mount Weather earlier, but then it wouldn't have changed much: the dropship on the Ark won't be ready for another couple of weeks anyway.

 

* * *

 

It is one evening that he’s talked to the Ark and he’s frustrated that he finds himself walking to Abby without even thinking about it. It’s just the right place to go and the right person to talk to, such an insane idea, but he feels like she’s turned into the only one he can discuss things with and not worry it might backfire.

“You look unusually sad,” she comments before the door behind him closes. The tiny room they’ve placed her in is dimly lit and Abby’s sitting in the far corner, with a flashlight and a book.

Kane nods. Words are not yet formed in his mouth and thoughts are still chaotic in his head. Bad news are always bad, no matter how much you try to see them differently. He signs and walks in. Abby’s patiently waiting for him to start talking.

“A dear friend of mine died today on the Ark,” he finally says, his voice low.

“Is that something that shouldn’t have happened?” she asks curiously looking up at his face. He blinks. Part of him expected her to say she was sorry for his loss. The other part didn’t expect anything at all, but this…

“Y… Yeah, I would hope so…” he sits next to her on a narrow bed.

“How did…” Abby pauses, “she?” her voice is unsure, “die? Was it an accident?”

He shakes his head negatively.

“She was executed. Floated…”

“Oh…” there’s silence again, and then Abby puts her hand on his shoulder. He jerks, taken by surprise, but doesn’t break the contact. He watches her while she watches him. “Does it hurt? This… floating?”

Marcus frowns. He’s never thought about it and he never cared. Does it hurt to die? Does it matter if you die anyway?

“Death comes quickly, so I suppose… No, it doesn’t hurt.”

“Oh,” she repeats and chuckles. “Then she is lucky,” her voice softens. “A painless execution,” Abby smiles thoughtfully, then takes a deep breath and touches her own neck where a cut is still far from being healed. Kane remembers all the other marks he’s seen on her body and moves uncomfortably on the bed. “Your people are so weird. What is the point of executing then?” Abby asks, biting her lip.


	6. I have no idea how to use this thing

She enters the council room unsure, looking around, two guards on both sides of her. Marcus sees how uncomfortably her cuffed hands lean on a cane. He curls his lips when Abby glances at him, and nods to the guards to let go of her. Abby doesn’t move until he waves his hand inviting her in.

“Is it really necessary?” she breathes out as a greeting as soon as she’s close to him, and points to the metal bracelets on her wrists. She looks at others in the room, slowly moving her eyes from one figure to another as if scanning them.

“It’s for your own protection,” he says firmly. His people might no longer be anxious to kill her, but it would bring unrest if a grounder was to roam free in the camp, at least for now. “There’s something we’d like your expertise on,” he adds and a few others nod.

Abby sighs and slowly walks to the table, her cane creaks on the floor with every step. She thoughtfully looks at the maps, and then frowns, awaiting explanation.

“A ship with our people will be landing on Earth soon,” Kane continues, “And we need to know where they will not be attacked by the grounders.”

Abby shoots him a look when she hears the last word, and he notes not to call her people that again. She then silently studies the maps, and by her tension Kane can almost suspect she’s never seen maps before. It might’ve been a terrible idea: he wanted to show others how valuable their prisoner is, but she might be just as useless right now. Abby puts the cane down, leans on the edge of the table for support and trails the paper with her fingers, cuffs visibly making her movements uncomfortable; then bites her lower lip, and then chews the air before saying anything at all. Others in the room start to get impatient and one even heads to leave before Abby finally speaks.

“If it’s going to be as small as this one… ” she walks to the side of the table and raises her cane above the map, “They could land it anywhere here and no one would notice,” she points at a huge valley between three hills. Marcus smiles victoriously.

“Thanks,” he places his hand on her shoulder for a brief moment, and she flinches at his touch, not much but he can still feel it and withdraws his hand right away. “Sorry.”

Then council goes back to discussing the upcoming landing, and for a time they simply ignore that Abby’s still there. She doesn’t seem to mind, apparently happy to be out of the medical bay and her tiny room. She looks and listens and studies the map, and then the ceiling and then she simply stares at the people present in the room. It only lasts for a few more minutes, and then the meeting is over, people exit the room, leaving Abby and Marcus alone.

“It’s just a cut,” she quietly explains as soon as the door closes behind the last guard, an apologetic look on her face, “I didn’t mean to flinch, I…”

It takes Marcus a few moments to realize what Abby’s referring to. He wonders if she feels the need to explain her reaction at his touch because she fears his anger or because she wants him to pity her. What he cannot (and shouldn’t) forget is that she’s a smart woman, Marcus reminds himself. She might seem defenseless but he knows when he meets an equal opponent, and the more time they spend together, the more he grows to adore the way her mind works.

“Does it still hurt?” if Abby wants to complain, he can allow that. He’d assumed that her injuries are mostly healed by now, leaving brown and yellow bruises as reminders. But truth be told, he hasn’t seen her body since she was moved from the medical bay. Jackson treats her when he sees fit, and there’s no reason for Marcus to be present.

“This valley is huge,” she changes the subject leaving Kane wondering, “but if they miss it, there might be problems.”

Of course there might, he grimaces.

And in just two days they learn just how badly things can go.

 

* * *

 

It starts with an explosion on the Ark moments before the ship has to leave the dock. They lose the signal soon after, and by the time they restore connection it’s too late to fix the course: ship crashes dozens of miles away from where it’s supposed to land. They don’t just miss the valley Abigail showed them – they land in the middle of the mountains, on the edge of a cliff.

“Do we even know how to get there?” someone asks Marcus, and he doesn’t bother to face the speaker. The mountains are the least of his concern right now, and while other members of council don’t know it yet, he’s already estimating if it makes any sense to attempt a rescue mission. With what Abby explained to him about that particular piece of land, they might find the ship full of corpses. He hates himself for thinking this way, but the last thing they need right now is an open fight with a tribe known for violence and blood thirst.

And that tribe owns the land where the ship crashed.

Kane swears under his breath and hits the table with a fist. He hates both his options, but he knows he’ll have to choose one and he’ll have to do it soon.

“Our grounder prisoner knows a path through the mountains that can bring us to the ship,” he states after a long pause. If Abby wants to lead them into a trap, they will all get killed. If they don’t accept her offer to help and decide to go alone, they will all die. If they don’t go, their people on that ship will most definitely be slaughtered or worse. “But…”

But they’ll have to fight.

He makes a decision regardless of how much he hates it. Less than an hour later a team of ten guards is ready to leave. Kane instructs those who are staying behind to defend the camp if such necessity arises and then turns to Abby who’s standing at a distance. They are fixing a bulletproof vest on her torso and it’s clear that she feels uncomfortable. Her eyes are locked on Marcus when he stops one of the soldiers who tries to put handcuffs back on Abby’s wrists.

No cuffs. It’s bad enough she needs a cane to walk.

They board two Rovers, Abby by Kane’s side, nervously glancing at him and at the road. She’s clearly never been in a vehicle before, and if the Chancellor wasn’t so worried about a million things, he’d probably find it amusing. He hasn’t seen her this tensed ever since the first day she woke up in the Medical.

 

* * *

 

When the road gets too bumpy and narrow to drive, they leave the cars hidden in the trees and walk. It’s still far, Abby says as she struggles to walk fast enough for the rest of the group, but her injured leg isn’t making it easier and walking mountain trails with a cane is far from comfortable. A few hours later she is too exhausted to continue, Marcus can see how she’s grabbing the rocks for support and leaning onto the trees they pass by. Abby’s out of her breath, and so is the rest of his team: they are trained and physically fit, but Earth gravitation differs from the Ark. Long hikes with ammunition are not easy.

“Let’s take five,” Kane commands, and every single guard stops at once, drops their backpacks and sits down, breathing heavily. Abby bends and presses her back to a tree, looks up the cliff and then closes her eyes. She’s clearly in pain but remains standing. Walking to her side, Marcus speaks quietly, but loud enough for everybody to hear, “You should get some rest too.”

She shakes her head negatively, then freezes for a moment, thinking about something.

“I appreciate it, I really do, but you don’t have to worry about me, we can continue.”

“Abby, everyone is tired, you don’t have to be stronger than you are, you’ve not fully recovered,” his tone doesn’t suggest a discussion. Marcus is exhausted too, he wants to get some rest before climbing yet another mountain but it doesn’t feel right until everyone else is resting. Abby’s stubbornness annoys him.

“I might not be able to get up after that,” she admits biting her lip.

Marcus studies her from head to toe.

“Something I should be aware of?” he finally asks, and Abby looks into his eyes, her face burning with anger. She grits her teeth and straightens up, makes a step towards him, trips over her own foot and falls forward, hanging onto Kane’s shoulders.

“This is a terrible place for a halt, Marcus,” she whispers so very fast and quiet that he can barely make out her words, “I don’t want to undermine your authority and…” he helps her to her feet, but keeps her chest pressed to his, he listens, “I don’t want to criticize your decision in front of your people, but this place is dangerous, we have to move. Now,” with the last word she pushes herself from him, regaining a standing position. A moment later Abby almost falls to a side, unsteady on her feet. Kane waves his hand for support, but it’s never needed.

Processing Abby’s words, he commands everyone to keep going, then looks at Abby: she returns the gaze but doesn’t offer any more explanations.

 

* * *

 

At the sunset Abby brings them to a cave. It’s not deep, and she stops one of the guards when he wants to set a fire; but this is the best they’re going to get in these lands, she says, and by this time everybody is too tired to argue.

“We’ll take turns to watch the entrance,” Kane announces and readies his rifle. He knows what others think, in fact, he can’t stop thinking that himself: here in this cave they are a perfect target should Abby have brought them into a trap. He doesn’t have any particular reason to expect that, but his years of experience won’t let him dismiss this worry.

One of the guards gives Abby a blanket (because nobody would make her carry a backpack, she was slow enough even without any extra weight), and she puts in onto the ground at the far wall of the cave.

“Don’t make any lights after it gets dark, they’ll see us,” she says out loud for everyone to hear before she lies down onto the blanket. She then massages her feet, flinching and hissing and moaning at every touch. When all the team is asleep, she comes closer to Kane, careful not to wake anyone up, and even more careful not to catch Kane himself by surprise. He hears her unsteady footsteps, unwillingly tensing his grip on the rifle.

“What’s your excuse for not resting now?” he asks, his voice low and teasing. He can hear her freeze two steps from him, obviously surprised he spotted her.

“There was a rock slide,” she offers as a response, and Kane frowns. This habit of hers to bring up some old conversations in the most unexpected way is something he should probably get used to. “Where we’d stopped before,” Abby continues when he remains silent. “Huge rocks often fall down in that area, you literally couldn’t have chosen a worse place for a stop,” licking her lips, she sighs and comes to sit next to him. He can see it’s hard for her to move, but after today’s hike Kane understands the difference between those grown up on earth and in space. No Earth Skills lesson can give your body this much endurance. Abby’s injured, and she’s in pain and she limps with every step, and yet, she seems to be less physically tired than his men who are trained to fight. No wonder they stand no chance against trained grounders’ warriors, their only hope of survival is peace.

He wonders what Pike will say once he’s with them.

Then he remembers Pike – along with everyone else on that ship – might be already dead.

“Why are you helping us?” Kane suddenly whispers, putting his rifle on his lap. “I know, I know,” he waves his hand stopping her from talking for a moment, “You don’t want anyone to die… I’ve heard that before, and while you gave us ways to get food and water without running into traps it was great, but now?” he studies her face in the dim moon light, barely able to see anything. “We are walking into an enemy territory, basically asking for a fight we cannot win. So why did you offer to help us?”

She swallows hard, lowering her head to a side.

“If your ship has already been found, there’s nothing we can do. But if not… And if we are lucky, I hope we will get your people before they start fighting mine,” Abby picks up a small stone from the ground and rolls it in her fingers, “Your people won’t be able to win, but they can still kill dozens with this weapon,” she motions to his rifle.

“What will they do to you if they catch you?” he asks her, suddenly changing the subject. It’s clear she’s confused at first as she opens her mouth to say something and nothing comes out. Abby frowns, staring at Kane’s face and he thinks he sees her not blinking. Then he reminds himself he cannot really see her face in this darkness.

“In these clothes? I don’t think anyone would recognize me,” she laughs, but it doesn’t sound amused. “They’ll kill me with the rest of your people. If they then check the bodies, they might realize who I was.”

There’s silence yet again. Their conversation is just too awkward tonight, nothing like when they talked for hours in the camp. Kane wonders what’s different: is it because they’re too tired? Too worried?

“Tomorrow by noon we will have reached your ship,” Abby states and Marcus stops her when she tries to get up. He gently pulls her closer again and then opens her hand and puts a gun in it. Abby flinches, opens her mouth to say something but he beats her to it.

“Just in case…” he explains. “But if you betray me,” he adds quietly, lifting her chin and leaning forward to make eye contact. She still looks at the gun in her hand, now squeezing her fingers around the handle. “If you betray me,” he repeats firmer, “You better shoot me dead, Abby. I trust you with not just my life, but with lives of my people. If you betray me and I survive, I will haunt you down and…”

“I won’t,” she says coldly, visibly offended by his speech. Then softens in a brief moment and bursts in laughter, “I have no idea how to use this thing.”

Marcus raises his eyebrows, he should’ve thought of it, and now the whole thing seems absurd. Taking a deep breath, he reaches for the gun in Abby’s hand, then takes her hand too. If the tribe on this land is as dangerous as she makes it sound, they’ll need all the firepower they can have and she better know how to fire a gun. He’s pretty sure they won’t spare her life even if they recognize her. Although she’s determined not to kill anyone, she might have to make a choice whom to save.

“I’ll teach you,” he presses her palm to the barrel, and then takes her other hand and puts her index finger on the trigger.

He does hope she won’t decide to shoot him at some point.


	7. You can’t carry me

Kane wakes up because of a weird noise. It’s like a broken radio with messed up frequency, except it’s louder and it’s smoother at the same time. He looks around to see all his people but one designated to guard the entrance are still asleep. Kane lifts himself up and in the far corner he spots Abby, facing the wall of the cave with her knees apparently pressed to her chest in an attempt to stay warm. The night was cold, and they both went to sleep long after the dark.

That weird sound seems to be coming from the outside, and Kane glances at the soldier sitting by the entrance. They both share a look, neither of them willing to say something loud to wake their people. Walking carefully towards the brighting light of the morning, Kane gives one more glance to a curled up figure of their… Prisoner? It might be the first time he feels ashamed calling Abby that. He gave her a gun, she’s not a prisoner anymore, Kane finds himself an explanation pretty fast, before making it to the guard and giving him a questioning look. Coming closer, he feels cold fresh air getting even colder on his face.

They glance at each other for a moment too short to actually say something and then the guard motions towards the outside. Kane looks closer. They both smile, and he’s pretty sure they look like idiots but… It’s rain. He knows what it is, he’s read about it, he’s dreamed about it, seen it in the old movies; but he never really knew it. A closer look at the guard’s uniform tells Marcus he’s not the only one excited about water pouring from the sky: soldier’s cloths are soaked with water, and the man is obviously freezing cold, but that doesn’t stop him from smiling with a hint of insanity in his eyes.

“You were supposed to guard the entrance, not walk out and burn our position,” Kane points out, his face immediately turning tensed. The cave is small and probably not that noticeable from the outside but the moment his guard left it, he could’ve been seen. He understands the urge though – he himself would give up a lot right now to just go there and have this huge shower. The movies he watched as a teenager definitely made him believe it would feel fantastic, even though he never even entertained the idea he – or anyone from his generation – was going to get such a chance.

He checks his gun, then looks outside again. If someone had spotted their guard, they’d been attacked by now. Unless whoever’s learnt their location is now gathering troops. Kane curses under his breath. It’s time to start moving.

 

* * *

 

As everyone’s getting ready to leave, Kane can’t help but glance at Abby. She keeps her distance, making it look like they’d not spent hours – in fact, two guarding shifts instead of just one – last night, learning to use a gun (thank God for the silencer, or else they'd not be able to shoot in the middle of the night) and awkwardly talking about nothing (but not arguing for the first time he can remember). Abby knows how to fire now, but Kane also knows how to sing, doesn’t mean he can actually do it properly (his mother had a different idea of his career choice, obviously).

Best case scenario in Kane’s head, though: none of them have to use weapons.

Abby folds her blanket and extends to one of the guards. He picks it, places in his backpack and, without saying a word to her, takes off towards the exit of the cave. Abby’s now trying to fix the bulletproof vest but she’s messing up with the straps and a closer look tells Kane she’s also wearing it backwards.

Kane chuckles and rubs his chin with fingernails.

It’s strange how even after all this time his people won’t engage with the grounder unless he tells them to. In the back of his head, he wonders what it’ll take for them to accept her. Then again, how long is she going to be with them? What is it all eventually leading to? He sighs and walks to Abby, while soldiers are crossing the cave towards the exit. It still rains, so they stop under the shelter of the rocks – inches away from falling water – and wait.

He takes a few seconds to help Abby with the vest: she did alright, considering it’s the first time she tried to put it on by herself. Instinctively he touches the gun attached to a belt behind her back, and then - by accident, he tells himself - her arm. It’s freezing cold, and she jerks it away almost immediately, nervously. Marcus looks at Abby’s face, frowning, but before he can say anything she picks up the cane and starts walking to the soldiers.

“This way,” Marcus hears her say out loud a moment before he hears his people’s hissing. He’s pretty sure they were all dying to get out into the rain, and as soon as he walks out himself, he understands what that hissing was about. Cold water falling onto his head and body doesn’t feel any good or romantic at all, and as he walks faster to catch up with Abby, Kane shivers without realizing it.

 

* * *

 

It takes much more to walk in the rain. Their feet get deep into the mud with every step, their cloths are heavy and the ground is slippery. No matter how exhausted their guide holding onto a cane is, she’s the only one who’s not fallen so far. At first they all make just a little bit more fun than they should every time someone skids off the trail and lands into the wet dirt, but by the time the group reaches solid ground, they’re all covered with mud not even heavy rain can wash off.

The path they are taking becomes almost impossible. It’s narrow, with a rocky wall on one side and a bottomless cliff on the other. By the time they have to go through a second cave on their way (at least the first one was visible; this one is hidden behind rocks and no one would notice it unless they knew where to look), Marcus seriously wonders how Abby can even know this way. This land does not belong to her tribe, and yet she seems to be familiar with it.

This thought – somewhere in the back of his head at first – slowly burns into a big fire. He’s promised himself to trust her (for a lack of better options or alternatives), but Abby’s not making it easier. They are all tired and cold and pissed off at the unexpectedly-not-so-pleasant rain, so nobody talks.

“We’re almost there,” she finally announces, and then turns her head back to face everyone: a gesture so small and harmless somehow costs her balance, and the next thing they all know, Abby’s waving her cane and hands in the air trying to get in an upright position while her body mercilessly levels towards the cliff. It only lasts a second, maybe a second and a half, too short of a time for Marcus to actually think what will happen if they both fall (because he can’t be sure he can pull her back up, the path is too narrow even for one), but he’s the closest one to her, and he finds himself making two quick steps to Abby and grabs her by the collar of her jacket – a jacket someone in Arkadia donated for her, because her clothes were all cut and bloody – when she’s already falling off the path and down the cliff.

He squats trying to balance himself, pulling her up with her feet still touching the edge of the rock. Her cane flies down and disappears in the rain. Abby jerks and grabs Marcus’ hand. He pulls her up again, this time with better luck.

She collapses onto him and Marcus falls back, with Abby's chest pressed to his. The passage is only so wide for them to lie there on top of each other, unable to roll off because even lying like this Marcus feels one of his shoulders hanging above several hundred feet of emptiness. Abby’s panting. The whole thing lasts for no more than several seconds, but it takes ten times that for them to catch their breath. Carefully, he helps her up and places her both hands on the rocky wall for support. Abby’ll have to walk like this, because there’s no way he can help her on such a narrow path, and with Abby’s cane gone there’s nothing else to support her.

To his surprise, none of the soldiers make any comments. He’d expect major Byrne to be pissed off about the whole situation, but she’s quiet, perhaps just afraid of height and too busy to care.

“It’s just straight now,” Abby exhales bending down when the narrow path is finally over and they take a few more hidden turns. She then waves her hand to where the path goes into the bushes. “Just an hour more.”

“So lead the way,” one of the soldiers says, his voice irritated.

Abby shakes her head negatively.

“You don’t need me anymore and there’s no other way from that place, so you’ll meet me here when…” she coughs, and before Abby can continue, Major Byrne interrupts.

“She’s sending us into a trap, sir,” coming closer and placing herself between Kane and Abby, she stares at the grounder. Abby swallows hard and takes an unsteady step backwards to increase the distance between her and Byrne. It’s clear she’s afraid of the woman who’d tortured her during her early days in Arkadia. Kane frowns, watching them.

“You can’t walk, can you?” he teases, coming closer to Abby and visibly amused. “You’ve grabbed several trees for support, and you fell twice, trying to balance your injured leg,” he continues in a tone that doesn’t suggest any kind of response. He’s not asking. He’s stating. Marcus looks around hoping to find a stick that can serve Abby as a cane, but finds nothing. To be fair, if there was a stick to be found, she’d probably have it by now. Apparently they are too high in the mountains and trees are rather small here, nothing wide enough to hold human’s weight. Marcus sighs. “Major, take my backpack,” he hands it over and then in one instant move picks up Abby (compensating her poor attempt to get away from him by an additional quick step towards her).

“You can’t do this!” she hisses when he tries to lift her off the ground. “You’ve been shot, Marcus, you…” she fights him with one arm, still keeping the other on a tree for support. It doesn’t help, and Marcus puts her onto his shoulder, careful not to make any sudden moves as she might still have unhealed injuries on her belly. Judging from her moans and quiet cries, she indeed does, and him being so very careful isn’t very helpful.

But after a few hundred steps he feels too weak to go on.

It’s not that Abby’s heavy, she’s really not, and he’s grateful she’s not tossing or trying to turn as he carries her (he wonders why), but she was right: he can’t do this. They’re in the back of the group now, so no one can see his struggle. He fights the urge to put Abby down as long as he can.

“Told you so,” she hisses with an evil (and yet sad) smile once he gives up and helps her down to her feet. Kane grimaces in pain, and Abby exhales. She’s annoyed and she’s not hiding it. “If your bullet wound starts bleeding, I won’t be able to help. How do you become a leader of your people if you cannot even take care of your own safety?” she limps, taking a couple steps intending to go on and follow the rest of the group, but Kane doesn’t move and Abby stops.

“You can’t walk,” he’s back to feeling fine enough to argue. And to even consider carrying her again: the pain he felt – as sharp and tiring as it was – has vanished.

“You can’t carry me either, Marcus, it was a stupid idea, and it was unfair to do it to me. You know I can’t fight back.”

“Okay,” he takes her by her shoulder where he hopes he’s not gonna hurt her, “You can lean on me then.”

“I can walk on my own. You’ve done enough damage to yourself.”

“We both know you can’t,” moving his hand from her shoulder down to her chest, he gives her a light push. Marcus plans to catch her before she actually falls, but his reach is limited by a disturbed bullet wound, and Abby lands onto her butt, eyes burning with anger. She winces, wet mud splashing around, and bites her lower lip.

“Major Byrne!” Abby suddenly says much louder, “Can you please?” she extends her hand towards the other woman but still looks Marcus into the eye, and he is yet again taken aback. Things Abby does to make a point. Byrne, nonetheless, doesn’t seem to mind, and after rolling her eyes for just a bit, she comes close, grabs Abby by the hand to help her up and then wraps an arm around Abby’s ribcage and places Abby’s hand on top of her shoulder for support.


	8. Please don't shoot

“Oh God,” major Byrne says under her breath and stops on top of the hill.

She loosens her grip on Abby, allowing her to slowly slide down to the ground. Abby’s silent. As soon as others get to where the two women are, nobody dares to speak or move, they look ahead in disbelief. The whole field around the wreckage of the spaceship is burning and is covered with dead bodies, and those are not of the grounders.

“It couldn’t have been the crash, sir,” one of the soldiers towers above Abby.

Kane shakes his head negatively. It wasn’t the crash. The ship wasn’t even supposed to be this damaged, let alone have its passengers spread out so far.

Kane chews the air and motions to proceed.

As Byrne reaches to pick Abby up, Abby backs down from her, lifting herself off the grounder with hands. She seems distant and frightened and Kane frowns, watching her slowly crawl backwards, away from where they are supposed to be going right now. Abby bumps with her back into one of the soldiers and cannot move any further, expression on her face even more terrified than before.

“We thought they didn’t have it anymore, even before I was born…” she murmurs quickly to herself and no one can understand what she means. They all share confused looks, then Kane nods and two soldiers pick her up by shoulders.

“Did the tribe do this?” Kane comes so very close to her that she blinks under his breath. Before Abby can respond, he sees someone with a machine gun in a distance. Whoever he is, he doesn’t look like a grounder. “There!” Kane shouts, “Someone’s still alive! Major, lieutenant, with me, the rest stay here.”

They move fast, careful not to make too much noise because whoever killed all these people might still be around. As they approach, Kane notices another person next to the first one, both wearing protective suits, both slowly walking away from them. Those suits are strange. Arkers know the Earth is survivable, so why would they… He hears shots and he hears screams. When he looks back, he sees those they’ve left behind running in different directions and firing their weapons at whatever came from behind. With a corner of his eye he registers Abby being dragged by his guard, and then he sees she’s rolling down the hill and the guard is still shooting, and then more men in nuclear protective suits are visible, and that’s when Kane turns around to those two he thought were survivors from the ship.

It all happens within a second, and he runs to the side of the ship for protection, because shots are being fired at them from two sides now.

“Who the hell are they?” Byrne yells, managing to kill one of the attackers, and then pushes Kane from another line of fire. He looks around trying to find some kind of cover to escape to. Here in the open they stand no chance… A bullet hits the metal wall of the drop ship inches above Kane’s head. They have to move.

They run. They shoot. He sees how all the bodies they pass on their way are actually killed with bullets instead of arrows or speats.

They split up.

As shots are now quieter and can only be heard from far, Marcus slows down, his rifle still in a ready-to-shoot mode. He picks up a sound coming from his left.

“Show yourself!” he barks and points his weapon at a pile of big stones. Nothing happens, yet, he can hear someone in there. He slowly steps forward, carefully walking around the pile, ready to fire at whoever is hiding there. It’s Abby. “Drop it. Now!” as Marcus steps forward, she’s still holding him at a gun point, her hands trembling, her face and neck covered with blood. “Drop it, Abby,” he repeats, tightening his grip on the trigger. She doesn’t move at first, but a moment later he sees her gun jerk to the right and then she fires it twice. Tears are running down her dirty face, and holding his rifle upright, Kane quickly glances to where her shots were pointed. Someone wearing a protective suit and a mask (and who apparently was going to shoot Kane from behind) is on the ground just a few feet away from them.

She lowers the gun, looking at the barrel of Kane’s rifle without blinking. She’s panting.

“What the hell was that, Abby? Who are they?” he makes a step forward, closing in on her, his gun still pointed at her chest.

“They weren’t supposed to be here, they never go this far,” she wails so very fast that it takes all Kane’s concentration to make out her words. Yet, nothing she says makes sense. “It must’ve been the ship, the ship is what they want, this ship… They knew it was coming!” she coughs to catch her breath and puts the gun on her lap and presses her hands to her chest. She’s had a rough slide from uphill – that much is obvious with all the blood and scratches and her clothes being torn.

“Stay here,” Kane whispers as he notices two more figures between the slim trees.

 

* * *

 

She doesn’t.

By the time he comes back to ask the million questions rushing through his head, Abby’s nowhere to be found. He spots a trail of blood from the pile of stones she used to hide and then he spots her gun (with no bullets which is probably the reason Abby’s ditched it). She couldn’t have gone far though, that much he knows for certain. For a brief moment Kane hesitates: he looks back to where the remains of a drop ship are (and he needs to go there because there might still be someone inside, someone who didn’t get out and get killed by… by whoever…) and then he looks to where the blood trail leads him. These are two opposite directions and two mutually excluding decisions, but he needs to know what they’re dealing with here. Whoever those people with guns were, they could not have been grounders and they were definitely not from the Ark.

He reaches for his radio.

“Major Byrne, come in?”

There’s silence and cracking sound coming, but no one responds. He starts following the blood trail, still talking to the radio. They need to regroup. “This is Chancellor Kane, come in. Anyone?”

It takes him three more attempts before he hears back.

 

* * *

 

First he hears pleading and moaning. It’s somewhere far, but he can clearly make out Abby’s voice. What she says though is a mystery to Kane. She’d been trying to teach him their language back in the camp, but as he follows the sound now, he can’t understand a single word.

Finally, at a distance and between the trees, he spots a wide figure dressed in fur. There is a scull of an animal on its head, painted with red and whoever that is, he or she is carrying Abby while she’s struggling to free herself and never stops talking.

Kane breathes out, irritated. Right, that’s exactly what they needed: a confrontation with the very tribe that owns this land. He is genuinely surprised that despite what Abby’s told him would happen, she’s still alive (though after today’s events, if he gets her back, they’ll have to have a long conversation about everything she’d ‘not’ told him… which is apparently a lot).

Kane picks up some words he can understand. “Help” and “don’t” and what really sounds like “safe” but he cannot be sure. As Abby makes yet another attempt to wriggle out and break free, he lowers his rifle, hanging it onto a shoulder, and reaches for his gun. He shoots the grounder in what he believes should be his lower back under all the fur and leather, and then he carefully walks closer, still looking around to make sure no one else is coming.

The grounder stops and snarls, awkwardly lowering Abby to her feet (but she cannot stand still so she drops onto her knees), and then falls next to her. To Kane’s surprise she doesn’t try to back away or crawl or… She gazes around, panic in her eyes, and then she bends over the wounded, trying to stop the bleeding. She’s talking, in their own language, and Kane grimaces in disbelief as he approaches them: the moment Abby sees him, she pushes herself up and covers the grounder with her own body.

“Marcus, don’t!”

He’s hesitant, a new ugly realization forming in his head. Did she actually need saving from this grounder? Wasn’t he supposed to kill her on a spot?

They stare at each other for a long moment, Kane’s face as hard as a stone, his rage boiling inside.

“So this was a trap, wasn’t it? All a big lie to… what?” he spits out, towering above her and the grounder who’s now gasping for air. “Kill us all? Is that why you wouldn’t let us meet your people and talk about peace? Because they don’t want peace! You don’t want peace, you came to us to spy…”

She’s shaking her head, but Kane doesn’t care. He hasn’t felt this badly betrayed in a very long time if ever. Everything he thought he knew proved to be a bucket of crap and deceit, and he’s got to give it to her, she’s good, Abby’s so very good at playing innocent. He almost fell for her; not just for the spectacle but for her... Kane twists his lips in disgust. Her people almost killed her to create a cover story, that's some scary determination.

He tries to remember what he’d been talking to her about, what secrets might’ve shared, and then it hits him: the drop ship. It had weapons and supplies on it, and she knew where it was supposed to be landing. It's so damn confusing and things don't add up, this whole mess just doesn't seem right, because she couldn't possibly have a way to communicate with other grounders unless they developed telepathy, and then those people near the drop ship were shooting at her too, and she killed one of them to save Kane's life... Or didn't she? He shakes his head trying to free himself from this delusion.

“How did they make our ship fall here? How?! Answer me!” his voice isn’t loud but it sounds like a scream nonetheless. Abby jerks at the last words, still frozen in what looks like an incredibly uncomfortable position (supporting herself with hands and pressing her side to the grounder’s body).

“Marcus, please don’t shoot, it’s not what you think, it’s…”

“Move away, Abby,” he says coldly, waving his gun to a side. “Move away, or I’ll shoot him through you.”

“Please,” she begs, lifting her arm towards Kane as if trying to cover herself from his gun.


	9. I didn't want you to die

They don’t move for a few moments, neither of them willing to break the silence. There’s only the sound of wind and the moans of the grounder. Kane’s anger is not quite gone, far from it actually, but as he forces himself to think outside of here-and-now, the picture becomes less of a disaster and more of a misfortune.

“Are there more of them coming?” Kane asks, nodding at the man lying on the grass, his voice steady but tensed. He looks around, his gun in a ready-to-shoot mode, but nothing suggests they have company. He comes closer and, taking a deep breath, lowers the weapon.

“I don’t know. It’s their land,” Abby breathes out softly with a visible relief, dramatically closing her eyes and then turns her back to Kane and starts removing clothes to get to the wounded body of the grounder.

“Is it? Or is it yours as well?” Kane takes one more step closer and towers above her. She freezes for a moment, then goes on without addressing him. “Who is he Abby?”

Still no response.

“How does he know your name? You said this was not your tribe… clan, so how the hell did he address you by your name, I heard it, Abby!” Kane yells the last words, cutting her attempt to interrupt him, and Abby turns away once again, struggling to lift the body to check the exit wound (the grounder is obviously too heavy so she barely rolls him over to his side) and then pressing her not-yet-fully-dried-after-the-rain jacket on both sides. “I don’t want any more lies, Abby. Who is this? Who were those others?”

She shakes her head.

“I can’t stop bleeding like this,” she says as if Kane isn’t talking at all. “Help me. Please?” she raises her eyebrows when Kane doesn’t move. He once again looks around: one grounder doesn’t mean there are more coming, but his inability to see them doesn’t mean they’re not, either. “I’ll tell you everything, absolutely everything, but please, we need to save him.”

“Why?”

“Because he doesn’t deserve to die.” She pauses. “Roan,” Abby nods at the grounder, “was merely trying to save me from your people. He thought I was in trouble and wanted to help,” she’s this very close to sounding scolding. “And you shot him before I had a chance to explain it all,” pointing her index finger at Kane and then back at her, she shakes her head, contempt no longer hidden.

“That doesn’t explain how he knows you… Or you – him,” Kane exhales, annoyed, but he can already see it’s pointless to dispute with Abby right now, she’s in that mode of hers he’s seen enough times in Arkadia to know better than to waste time and effort. If she wanted him dead, she’d shoot him instead of whoever was behind his back.

Staying in the open might not seem like a terrible idea to Abby, and she makes that much obvious, annoying and almost pissing Kane off, but she’s not a warrior and he doesn’t hold it against her for longer than a few seconds when they still argue. Despite Abby’s wishes they do drag the body slightly lower down the hill where they are covered by rocks and bushes from two sides. It might not be perfect, and when Kane thinks about it, might not even make that much difference should they be attacked, but it does give him a certain level of ease.

“You never talked about your family… Is he… who you’re with?” for lack of better words he asks in the most awkward way he could ever imagine, then takes off his backpack and starts going through its contents. The stuff he has in it is dry, and there are pieces of fabric Abby grabs the moment she spots them in Kane’s hands. He constantly looks around, but nothing happens, and Abby draws his hands to the wound, making him apply pressure while she speaks to the grounder in a language Marcus can only pick up some words in.  He’s sure he hears ‘sorry’, and then something about ‘mother’ and ‘execution’. The grounder whispers back, and not even Abby can hear it, so she bends closer and he apparently repeats it to her ear.

“No,” she suddenly gets back to Marcus, and – oh this habit of hers to say things without explaining what they are about. He grimaces, one hand reaching for the gun before he knows he’s doing it. “My husband is dead, killed by people in those idiotic suits and masks and it was my…” she’s suddenly overwhelmed and can’t catch her breath even thou she seemed stone-calm a moment before. “And the reason I never told you about my family is because there is nothing left to tell about, Marcus.”

 

* * *

 

When the bleeding’s stopped and Abby’s done with bandages, her hands and sleeves are covered in blood all the way up to elbows. They don’t talk much in the process, Kane choosing to give her this one last benefit of a doubt and rather concentrating on their surroundings: there are no signs of anyone else coming. But as she moves away from the wounds and checks the grounder’s forehead, Kane clears his throat, reminding her he’s still waiting for an explanation.

The very first words out of Abby’s mouth make Kane want to break her neck.

Instead, he clenches his fists, digging his fingers into the handle of the gun he’s pointing at the ground, and forces himself to stay quiet all the way until she’s done talking. He should’ve known Mount Weather could not possibly be destroyed, not by the nuclear war, not by a hundred years and especially not by the savage tribes. It only makes sense to be mad at himself for believing such a story and not checking it (though he’s got to admit there are more reasons they haven’t checked it beside Abby’s lie).

“They never come this far,” Abby chatters, and he remembers he’s already heard her say this, up on the top of the mountain when she first saw the ship burning. At least now he understands what the hell went wrong with landing: whoever’s living in the mount Weather has firepower, they’ve obviously shot the ship down. Whether they feared it or wanted something from it, remains unknown and Kane doesn’t expect Abby to guess: he sees the terror in her eyes when she talks about it…

“My people died because of you today,” he says under his breath, his voice bitter and he’s barely able to contain his aggression, but there’s no point in yelling or threatening her. His pride won’t let him fully believe he could be misled this badly. There’s got to be a reason for everything.

Kane glances at the grounder: if they can bring this guy back to Arkadia, they’ll finally have someone to verify what Abigail’s been telling them. That is, if the grounder cooperates.

“And how many didn’t, Marcus? How many didn’t die because of me over the past weeks?” She looks at him but stays where she is. “What would’ve changed? I told you not to go to that ship, did you listen?”

He would be much more careful about armed men dressed in suits, that much is certain (running to them would definitely not happen), but she’s right, he doesn’t exactly see how anything else would be different. They wouldn’t be able to make it to Mount Weather without Abby’s guidance, and she sure wouldn't agree to help, fearing they'd join forces to kill the grounders.

“So why did you lie?”

“First I feared you would make an alliance with them against my people,” she breathes out, confirming his suspicions, her voice trembling. Fair enough, even though he'd hoped by the time they had that conversation the fear and mistrust were in the past. “And then I learnt more about your people… I didn’t want you to die. They kill anyone who gets too close, this yellow fog comes out of nowhere and…” she grabs him by the shoulder – both for support and to draw his attention to her words, “They’ve killed hundreds of my people and they still keep dozens as prisoners, no one ever escaped from that place!.. They never come this far…” she repeats again much quieter as if it’s a prayer, and Marcus frowns.

Mountain men killed hundreds of people today, but none of the killed ones seemed to be grounders. Which is weird, considering it’s the grounders’ land and the clan owning it is supposed to be so very protective of its territory. They took a great risk, one he cannot yet justify or understand.

“So there’s something they want here? Something on the ship,” Kane suggests and knows immediately that Abby’s got no clue: the ship is like a big unfamiliar beast to her, nothing more and nothing less. She shrugs perplexedly. Kane thinks back: them wearing protective suits could only mean they are unable to breathe the air, which in its turn would mean they’d have to carry it with them and... Considering how long it takes to get here from Arkadia and how much further mount Weather is, that’s a lot of air they’d have to carry. Even if they too have cars, it’s still challenging, unless… Unless they other means of transportation, and as soon as this thought crosses Kane’s mind, he regrets it.

“Are they… human?”

She nods several times, nervously.

“They must’ve made an alliance with Azgeda,” as if under a spell, says Abby with disbelief on her face, and she covers her mouth with a hand, her eyes big at a realization Kane can’t quite see the horror of just yet.

“The tribe… clan? Here? Didn’t you say these mountain men were never interested..?”

She nods quickly and then gets up even quicker (and then almost falls back once she steps on her injured leg).

“Something is happening. We have to warn... We have to go, Marcus. This isn’t good, we have to go…” she winces and grimaces in pain as she makes an unsteady step. “And we cannot leave him here.”

He’s glad they agree on something without having to fight about it. Their motives, he’s certain, are different or even opposite, but that’s the least important thing right now. The grounder, _Roan, Kane reminds himself,_ is still unconscious after something Abby made him drink, so they tie him up, gag him and hide him under the bushes and stones, planning to pick him up before heading back to Arkadia (because Abby’s barely standing on her feet and she’s enough of a burden for Kane to walk up the hill to where they’ll meet major Byrne and others, so there’s no way he’s carrying anyone else). Kane turns on his radio.

“This is Chancellor Kane, come in?”

“Chancellor Kane, this is Major Byrne. We have survivors. I repeat, we have survivors in the dropship.”

 

* * *

 

Despite the damage outside, Kane finds the inner space of the drop ship mostly intact. They slowly walk the corridors until they see the main hall full of people. Some – most, actually – are injured, and Kane starts to understand the past events as he's talking to whoever is willing to shed some light on what's happened. It’s a shame so many died while trying to get out, but the amount of survivors who’s locked themselves inside the ship is remarkable. Sadly, it’s obvious they can’t stay there much longer. Kane’s team might’ve taken attackers by surprise, but there’s no doubt they are coming back with reinforcements... A young man in a guard uniform steps forward, and it takes Kane about a heartbeat to recognize his face: that kid whose mother was floated for having a second child.

“Sir Chancellor Kane.”

He nods in response. He remembers the face, but not the name.

“Can we seal at least some compartments of the ship?” Kane asks quietly, looking around and trying to estimate how many raids they’ll have to arrange to move all the essential equipment to Arkadia.

“I say we blow it all up, so those crazy folks who attacked us don’t get it.” Bellamy. Now he remembers, this young guard’s name is Bellamy.

“You blow it up – and the clan that owns this land considers it a war declaration,” Abby who’s been standing by Kane’s side quiet before, jumps into the conversation.

“And we pretend it was their new ally’s doing,” Kane confronts her, “If you are right and they have an alliance, it’ll work. How would they know who really blew it up?”

Abby shakes her head again.

“So what do you suggest? We leave all the equipment for the mountain men to use?” Kane likes the idea of destroying their own incoming shipment of details they need to survive cold season less than he shows, but whatever enemy wanted here, it was valuable enough to kill hundreds. And possibly even forge an unwanted alliance… “If we can figure out what it is they want here, we might have a chance to force them into a truce,” he adds thoughtfully, looking around.

They find nothing specific though. What’s not broken after a hard landing is valuable, and frankly even some damaged things can be repaired and used. Kane curses under his breath. Too many people are injured, so they won’t be able to carry anything. Some of them will need assistance too. That dangerously limits the amount of supplies they can take.

With heavy heart and being almost certain he’s going to regret his decision, Kane orders the ship blown up as soon as they take what they can bring to Arkadia.

Things start going south right after that: when Kane sends a team to pick up injured grounder, he’s nowhere to be found. Whether this Roan managed to break free from all the knots Kane tied, or he was rescued by one of his own (or perhaps the mountain men took him), it’s a pity a potential source of information slipped through their fingers. Deep down Kane spares a moment to wonder why Abby was so determined to take that grounder with them: he senses trouble, not really understanding their nature...

“We have to move. Obviously they didn’t expect us to show up so soon or perhaps didn’t even know we existed, but now they do.”

As they walk to the top of the hill, he picks up a portable radio from one of the dead mountain men.


	10. If you trusted me

Their way back takes long. Kane’s getting newcomers up to speed, and Abby is picking up herbs (more like telling guards to do so as she barely walks and cannot bend or lift things). In the short moments when Kane has a chance to exchange a few words with her, they mostly discuss the state of Medical, what Jackson is running low on (and that is everything), and what meds they need to replace with grounders’ equivalents (truth be told, whatever possible, but then sadly, grounder healers treat a lot of curable diseases as fatal)…

Carrying stretchers with wounded is only part of the problem (as is the amount of those stretchers and the fact that people are now too spread out to even see the end of them). They split into smaller groups once they hit complicated part of the trail… Another issue is that those who have just arrived are absolutely not ready to walk long distances: gravitation takes the best of them too fast while they still must carry equipment and rations. They make many stops, each time having to walk an extra mile away from the path just to be on a safe side. Surprisingly, they manage to sneak out of Azgeda’s lands without being attacked. Whether that’s luck or something else, Kane chooses to think the enemy must be too busy trying to save whatever’s left of the dropship.

The first problem Chancellor faces as soon as they return to Arkadia is housing (that being a technical problem, of course, on top of a psychological one: people are overwhelmed with an unsettling mixture of excitement to be on the ground and grief for family members and friends who died upon landing). Several hundred new people need a place to sleep. They also need food, water and medical care. Some need clothes. Those capable of working help setting tents and hunting; those who cannot do anything, well, they find themselves in a suddenly overcrowded Medical (it’s not even Medical anymore, it’s now the whole separate tent with dozens of what serves as beds and a handful of volunteers).

Kane lets Abby become his doctor’s responsibility for now and she stays in the tent to help too (which Jackson doesn’t seem to have any problems with, and Kane notes with relief that those two are becoming friends).

As the Chancellor dives into new problems arising one after another, he is almost surprised to see Abby walking into the council room, her hand on a guard’s shoulder for support and the guard’s arm wrapped around her waist for balance (on their way to Arkadia, Abby makes it obvious she can no longer walk on her own, not even with a cane).

“Grounder healer said it was urgent, sir,” the guard addresses Kane apologetically; this is a new guy, Kane knew him briefly on the Ark. The way he’s supporting a grounder prisoner is… It’s the same way he’d support anyone else and it suddenly hits Kane: those who’ve just arrived have nothing to hate grounders for. They were not battling for life down here these past months.

It’s only been a few days since their return to Arkadia though, what could have possibly happened that made Abby leave patients?

“You need to make an alliance with clans,” she shoots when Kane nods inviting her to speak. Other council members look at her, surprised.

“Now?” he raises eyebrows, taken aback at the very least. After his countless attempts to convince her to help, he’s given up on that for now. They have more pressing matters at hand, like shortage of drinking water and food and those mountain men being a potential threat… Becoming friends with grounders, as useful as it might’ve seemed before, doesn’t promise to be that fruitful anymore. As long as they can avoid each other, it’s good enough for Kane, and Abby has proven that much can be done.

“Before it’s too late, yes… With all the clans that aren’t Azgeda,” she adds after a pause.

Right, Azgeda. Kane twists his lips ironically. That’s what scares Abby into wanting to help him get peace with her people: an alliance between grounders capable of killing everybody and people holding weapons of mass destruction.

The alliance that may or may not exist.

“If there is a war coming between clans, we shouldn’t be part of it,” Kane hears a female voice by his side. “It would be wise to stay on the side and wait,” he nods in agreement, but cannot quite say if that’s possible. Knowing what Abby has told him about clans and wars between them, Kane can see how such a trigger happy armed friendship can escalate into a mass destruction. He believes other grounders will be first to suffer losses, and in a certain way he understands why Abby’s pushing for it now or how his colleague sees the situation...

What happened to the dropship is a tragedy, but then again, if survivors from mount Weather wanted Arkadia destroyed, they could’ve targeted it with the same weapon they used to hit the ship. It’s been almost a week since their encounter, and nothing has happened…

Abby shakes her head, and Kane waves at her, signaling to the guard to bring her closer. One of the council members gets up, freeing a chair for her.

“You are already part of it,” she pushes back, “Your people died there because of the alliance.”

“We don’t know that for sure,” Kane begins quietly. He would prefer Abby not to dwell on what’s happened, because there’s no telling how people might react. “All we can say for certain is that survivors from Mount Weather were involved, but we have no idea what made them attack our ship.” Or why that clan was okay with it.

Abby sighs, eyeing other council members.

There are twelve clans. There’s one that might be going against them. There are mountain men with missiles and unknown agenda. And then there’s Arkadia and there’s Ark with people who’s got no more dropships left, ultimately being stuck in Space until a miracle happens.

Miracle. Missiles. Kane glances at Abby, then at the councilors. There could be a solution for everything, there must be.

 

* * *

 

“With all due respect, sir... It’s a terrible idea, sir.”

Kane glances at the portable radio he’s holding. It’s slightly different from the ones they are using, but he can figure out how to turn it on.

“They can backtrack us with it,” major Byrne continues.

“And that is why we are so far from Arkadia, major. But we have to try.”

Perhaps hiding this radio so far from the camp was not necessary, but he prefers to play it safe. Sadly, there’s nothing but noise coming from the other side.

“Come in?” he repeats, and again, nobody responds. They wrap the radio with plastic and bury under a tree once again. Byrne has a skeptical look on her face.

If mount Weather survivors are out of his reach, he might as well go for what he can get: the twelve grounder clans. Once they play it right, perhaps, it’ll be easier to make a deal with mountain men too (he’s certain he needs them if those stuck on the Ark are to ever come down here)…

When the next council meeting comes, he invites Abby to join it. Nobody seems to be too surprised, yet two members do make it clear they are unhappy.

“I’ve thought about it and I must admit I’m with Abigail on this one. Right now we are outnumbered by any of our potential enemies. Even if are not part of the war, we still might make a hell of a collateral damage.”

They take a vote, and it's in favor of Abby's idea.

 

* * *

 

“It almost looks like you weren’t going to help with this alliance before.” Marcus half smiles at Abby. They stare at each other for a moment.

“That’s because I wasn’t. Now I am, but it doesn’t mean that I like the way you do things,” she says sharply and moves her eyes away from him.

“Is that so?” he smirks, not amused anymore, but not surprised either. He might’ve not wanted to, but deep down Kane knows he saw what she was doing: telling him all about her people and their customs and their lives, but never their politics, never something that would shed light on their tactics…

“We’ll start with this clan,” Abby points at a map with her hand. Marcus frowns: it’s at least two days away from Arkadia. Obviously, there have to be tribes residing closer, or else, they wouldn’t have encountered them so often. As if Abby can hear his thoughts, she continues with an explanation, “ It’s farther away from you, so less probable your people have killed theirs... From there you’ll move up the chain of command.  Hopefully,” she adds under her breath and twists her lips. Marcus can understand her worries: what they’re about to do – while being exactly what he wanted in the first place – is dangerous and unpredictable. He still tries to contact Mount Weather every day, hoping to get some clarity if not an actual truce, but there’s nothing but noise on the other side of that radio.

He is surprised at how serious Abby sounds, almost as if she’s not a doctor but rather some kind of an official. Kane shakes his head: they’ll take one step at a time.

“But under no circumstances can anyone… Anyone know you have me here, Marcus. Do you hear me? No one can ever know, no matter how close you get to them, no matter how…” she signs and rubs her chin, “If they find out, they’ll kill everyone. And they’ll kill your people for hiding me. And they’ll…” she trails off.

He looks at her, his suspicions only getting stronger. Why would clans want to kill a healer?

The fear he notices in her voice is strange. too: Abby didn’t seem to be this much afraid of dying before. It’s almost as if it’s not her death she fears. She goes on explaining how to approach the clan leader…

 

* * *

 

When the meeting is over and council members leave, Kane motions to the guard for help.

“Do you want him to take you to your room or to Medical?” he asks softly, not looking at Abby. His attention is all pointed at the map and the pieces of plastic where Abby’s written messages for the clan leader. He hasn’t been studying grounder language lately, and that is something that needs to change, Kane thinks to himself. For what it’s worth, he’ll have to speak to the clan leader on the radio, and if that leader… what was her name, again? If that leader doesn’t speak English, he’s screwed.

“I need to talk to Roan if that’s alright,” Abby responds, taking him by surprise. “Can he take me to him?”

Damn it, not now.

“No, I’m sorry, Abby.”

“Why?” she lifts herself from a chair, pressing hands onto a table for support.  “Has something happened?”

Kane nods. A storm is coming, he can sense that much by how Abby’s face is turning pale.

“What have you done, Marcus?” she presses a palm to her mouth and then shakes her head.

“Who the hell was he?”

“You promised you’d not kill him!” she hisses and tries to make a step closer to Kane, but loses her balance and slips down onto the floor. “Don’t!” Abby yells when he tries to help her up to her feet. She grimaces, visibly in pain, but pulls herself up and onto the chair on her own. Kane raises his arms in a surrender gesture and steps back.

“Maybe it’s time you tell me who he is?”

“Does it matter now?”

“Someone still has him. It’s just not us, so… talk, Abby. How dangerous is that man?”

She swallows hard and then coughs. Her fingers dig into the fabric of her pants, and then she zealously scratches her knee as if trying to get to the bone.

“He’s the only son of Azgeda’s queen, Marcus.” Her gestures suggest she’s desperately trying to find right words. Abby opens her mouth, and then closes, visibly changing her mind. “If only you’d listened to me, and brought him with us…”

“It was out of my hands. Trust me, I wanted him too. We could learn more about their plans. You said it yourself, they’re trained and he would withstand any kind of torture to keep his queen’s secret. So perhaps we haven’t lost much after all…”

“You’re right,” she says after a long pause,  her voice irritated and very close to yelling, “When you say your people and mine are alike, you’re right. They would torture you… And so you would torture them,” she writhes with disgust, staring directly into Kane’s eyes. He raises his eyebrows. She’s not done, that much is obvious. “It’s incredible how two absolute opposites coexist in you, Kane, your pursuit of peace and survival and… And your willingness to kill to get those. We wouldn’t torture him, Kane! Don’t you get it, not everything can be resolved with force. He’s banished by his mother, he’d talk to me.”

“Or he’d lie to set us all up and find a moment to sneak you out of here. And bring to his queen on a silver platter to earn a ticket back home.”

“Or that, yes… But now we won’t know, will we? And he might decide to tell his mother I’m alive, just for what you said. Silver platter and a ticket and she will…”

Abby stops when her eyes are suddenly red and full of tears, and takes a deep breath.

“Maybe if you trusted me a little more Marcus, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“Maybe if you weren’t lying to me, it would be easier to trust, Abby.”


	11. How I think I feel

It takes three days for Kane’s men to reach the grounder clan Abby suggested. It takes three weeks of talks and threats and arguing with the clan leader over the radio to reach an agreement. This whole time Abby stays by Kane’s side, translating and explaining everything he needs. His grounder language improves, too, but not as fast as he would like.

From there relationship with grounders gets easier. Clan leaders send their messengers to Arkadia, one after another, and Kane is relieved to see them finally going towards peace.

Unfortunately, other things start falling apart as the weather reminds once again that Earth has seasons, and the cold one is about to begin. Living in tents will no longer be an option very soon, and with the very limited equipment they managed to bring from the second drop ship their heating system for the houses and the ship itself is far from perfect.

A big thunder storm with a flash flood makes things even more complicated: some of the houses Arkers built don’t survive it.

“Tents would be gone too if we didn’t put them onto platforms,” Abby points out to Kane as they sit in the tiny room that serves now both for the council meetings and as Chancellor’s quarters. She sips hot tea and clears her throat. Kane chuckles: building wooden platforms under the tents seemed like a waste of time and Abby spent a lot of energy trying to convince first Kane and then the rest of the councilors that it was a necessity. One of those times when he appreciates her stubbornness.

As to the houses they lost… Kane’s genuinely surprised any of the buildings survived at all as they constructed them using scans of archaic manuscripts found on the Ark. There is no way they have done everything right, because for five generations no one built anything resembling an actual house…

When Abby is not with Kane, teaching him the language or talking him through the customs of yet another clan he’s about to enter negotiations with, she’s with Jackson. These past weeks none of those involved in peace talks are getting much sleep.

A guard still follows Abby, but it mostly is for her own comfort these days rather than keeping her restricted: her injured leg does that job very well, practically immobilizing her. Jackson’s teaching Abby their ways of treating wounds (because he needs all the help he can get) and even doing some basic surgeries. He tries to suggest to fix her leg too, but Abby’s fast to decline, and as much as Kane would like to interfere, he chooses not to. At least, not now… Abby shows Jackson’s patients (who cannot do any hard work just yet) how to make clothes with the furs and skins of animals hunters bring. People are reluctant at first, but the cold convinces those who are in doubt.

“Have you checked if the last group brought all the herbs you and Jackson need?” Kane asks her and walks to his sofa, picking up a tablet. Abby nods. They can still hunt when snow falls, but these are the last days they can still pick up plants, and as much as Jackson has learnt about grounder medications, it’s still nice to have Abby’s expertise.

“We have everything we need for winter,” she says with a half smile, taking the tablet from Kane and looking at it. Abby nods again.

With the absence of any news about Azgeda or their lost ( _banished_ , Kane corrects himself every time he thinks about Roan) prince, Abby’s worries seem to have vanished.  Perhaps she was overestimating the importance of her death to the grounders after all, Kane thinks to himself.

“Thank you,” he puts a hand on her shoulder and squeezes it gently. Her fingers cover his in an instant. These past weeks have brought them much closer. And while Kane admits it’s mostly his loneliness and isolation that push him towards the grounder guest, he doesn’t mind it.

Perhaps, that is how it should be. On the Ark he’d never allowed himself to get attached to anyone beyond fulfilling his physical needs, but here… Here on Earth things are different; life does not feel like a death sentence anymore.

People are still the same, though: they remember him as the head of security, ruthless and cold. And while they respect Kane as a Chancellor, they also fear him. Everybody keeps their distance.

Everybody but Abby. He spots the signs that the sympathy is mutual. It’s what draws her towards him that remains a mystery to Kane. At first he thinks it is her need for protection and survival, then he blames it on him being her only company, and now… Now he doesn’t know, and frankly speaking, doesn’t care too much.

“We still have a lot to do,” Abby suggests, nodding towards an empty chair beside her. Kane sighs, they indeed do. It takes them hours to go through all the information they’ve received from the clans, he asks her for translation every time he’s not sure he understands what he reads. More often than he probably should Kane also asks her to explain things he already knows: it’s not that he doesn’t trust her, but his instincts like to have proof every step of the way. Time after time, he does so less and less.

He then distracts himself, checking the weather reports they are now getting from the Ark. It would be great if he actually knew how to understand all these pictures, and this is something not Abby nor anybody else can help with. A hundred year old technology is still working, circles and bright colors form strange shapes above the planet, but whether it means rain or snow or wind or nothing… Kane doesn’t know.

When he lifts his head up from the diagrams, he sees Abby fast asleep with her head on the table. He yawns, glancing at the door, then at Abby again. Waking her up and asking a guard to escort her to the cell is the right thing to do. He could even walk her himself if to not bother anybody this late, but he's tired, and they’ve done a lot of good work today, and... He carefully picks her up and she murmurs something in her sleep when her head rests upon Kane’s shoulder, and she breathes in deep as if smelling his skin, her hand slides up his chest to wrap around his neck as he carries her. She doesn’t wake up, not even when he puts her onto his sofa and tucks a blanket around her. They’re both exhausted, that much he knows for certain. Kane watches her move in her sleep, turning to a side and placing a hand under the pillow; and then sits onto a chair, realization of just how uncomfortable his own sleep is going to be tonight hits him. Kane chuckles.

It was a good day.

He sits, finding all the comfort he can, places his feet onto the table and leans back as much as possible. Despite feeling far from relaxed he falls asleep almost immediately.

It’s something warm caressing his skin that wakes him up, abruptly pulling him out of a yet another dream about the Ark (of his mother this time, her telling him how very proud she is that he’s finally doing what’s right, and it’s him crying and hugging her). His eyes fly open to see Abby standing right in front of him (or rather above him), her face still crumpled after sleep, her hair messy. He jerks, taken by surprise, and almost falls backwards onto the floor. So does Abby, withdrawing her hand from his cheek and loosing balance.

“You shouldn’t sleep like that, with your head dropped backwards.” she says apologetically and takes an unsteady step back, creating distance between them. He swallows, taking in his surroundings.

“How did you..?” he means to ask how she got from sofa to him, because ever since last week she’s no longer able to walk on her own, injured leg swollen and disobedient; but the chair and other pieces of furniture lying on the floor right in the middle of the way tell Kane it wasn’t an easy journey, even if only a few feet long. “Jackson says you refuse a surgery,” he adds thoughtfully, watching how Abby leans onto the table for support. She shakes her head. “Come here,” seeing her grimace, he gets up and wraps a hand around her; walks her back to the couch and sits beside her. “Do I have to order it against your will?” he frowns, meaning it as a joke. It would be a disaster, whatever her reasons are to not want to fix her leg.

“You wouldn’t,” she responds quietly, uncertainty and hurt in her voice. Abby’s suddenly tensed: Kane’s smile apparently not enough to show he’s not considering it seriously. Or, perhaps, he’s lying to himself and he actually _is_ considering all the possibilities right now, and Abby senses that. Kane bites his cheek. Jackson’s said there isn’t much time before they’ll have to amputate her leg.

“You’re a doctor, can’t you see what it is turning into?”

She nods but doesn’t look at him. Instead, she puts her hands on her ankle and pulls her injured leg up to the couch, wincing and quietly moaning under her breath as she moves. Kane clenches his fists to not reach out to help.

“Later. There’s still time,” she suggests in a matter-of-fact tone and raises her eyebrow. “Please.”

 

* * *

 

He lets Abby have her way, and three days later they find her unconscious in the storage where they keep herbs and potions. It’s not something unusual for her to be there alone: a guard takes her there every time Abby needs, and leaves her if whatever she’s doing is going to take long. This time, however, she locks herself inside, and Jackson, fearing the guards might overreact if he asks them to break the door, runs to Kane for help. When the two of them crack the door open, she’s lying on the floor, mess around her.

Jackson rushes to check her pulse while Marcus stands in the doorway, slowly searching the room for anything that might explain what happened.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Abby murmurs under her breath when Eric turns her onto her back, “I got dizzy and I fell. I’m fine.”

He checks her pupils with a flashlight and then inspects her head.

“No concussion,” he concludes while Abby curls up and covers her forehead with a hand.

“Did someone attack you?” Kane asks and, just as he anticipates, Abby moos negatively in response. There’s at least one tiny empty jar beside her, whatever was in it, has probably caused all this. “Thank you, Eric, I’ll take it from here,” he adds. Jackson was in the middle of treating a hunter injured by an animal when he found out Abby had locked herself in, so Kane lets the doctor go back to it and squats beside Abby, waiting for her to come to.

“You're just like my husband... Always near when I’m in trouble?” She murmurs as he’s carefully lifting her into a sitting position, and then she squeaks when her wounded leg is disturbed. "It got him killed..."

“You’re not in trouble.” Kane smiles sadly and tucks a curl behind her ear, deciding not to address the husband remark. It's not something he desperately needs to know right now, and if Abby decides to talk about that - after avoiding it for so long - she'll do so anyway. Abby stays silent for a few minutes, just staring at Kane, her eyes slowly turning red as if she's about to cry.

“I should…” she inhales loudly, wiping her nose with a sleeve, and leans forward to reach Kane’s lips with hers. He jerks back, as if he’s just been tased, avoiding contact, and can immediately see how confused Abby gets.

"What-a..?" is the only thing Kane can squeeze out of his mouth, still shocked by her attempt. It is not something he'd not want, eventually, but they are not 'there' yet, he's sure. She pulls away, embarrassment on her face. “I’m sorry, Abby. You’re in pain and you’re obviously fevering,” his voice sounds strict but apologetic as he reaches out to check her forehead for fever. Abby evades his touch and rubs her lips with an index finger; then presses her palms to her eyes.

“I… I shouldn’t have. I just thought it was what you expected.” She shakes her head and tries to pull even further away, but he won’t let her. “I’m fine, Marcus, my mind is clear,” her trembling chin tells him a different story. He wonders if it's a constant pain in her leg that exhausted her this badly, or something he's not even aware of.

“Since when do you do what I expect?.." Kane chuckles, trying to lighten up the situation. He fails. "If you did, you would allow Jackson to fix your leg, Abby,” he covers her healthy knee with his hand.

“I can take care of it, Marcus.”

“I know you think you can, Abby,” he continues insistently, “But this surgery is the only way. I trust Jackson's expertise.”

She’s silent for some time, her breathing becoming calmer, but her heartbeat quickening.

“I’m a prisoner here. I know what it means. If you order that surgery, there is nothing I can do to stop you, but I will still kick and bite and they'll have to tie me up like an animal, so please don’t... I can still fix it,” she sighs forcefully and puts her fingers onto his. Kane’s eyes widen; he says nothing, not exactly sure how to react or what to do now.  If that’s an act to make him feel guilty, it works, but he can’t see what she gains from it.

“You’re not a prisoner, Abby... But I don’t want to lose you, even if I have to go against your wishes to…” he trails off, realizing how wrong this sounds, especially now. Wondering if what he’s just said made any sense to her at all, he glances at Abby’s face, but she doesn’t seem to have heard him. She just squeezes his hand harder. Whatever is going on in her head, it’s troubling. He pulls her to his chest and taps on top of her head perplexedly. They are running out of time.

“I know you care,” she swallows hard and coughs before she’s able to continue. “But I don’t know if I can… I don’t know what this is, Marcus. I’m so messed up. I didn't have time to mourn my husband. And chances are, this isn’t what you hope for because...” She takes a deep breath, and when she exhales, it comes out as a mixture of roar and sobbing. “Sometimes I dream at night, I dream of him, and I know it’s him I see, but then I look and there’s your face. I’m confused, Marcus. He died because of me, and now it… I couldn't save him… What if I cannot save you either? What if I cannot save anyone at all?” Abby cries, dropping her head onto his shoulder and sobbing. Her arms wrap around his neck as if to not let him get away from her. Through her sobs and whimpers he hears Abby talk but cannot make anything of it.

“Abby, where is it coming from?"

He can't quite get what triggered this, but he can absolutely relate to her guilt. His father’s death being completely his fault (and it doesn’t matter that others say it wasn’t… It was,  _he’s sure_ ) left him broken, and wanting to fix everything, protect everyone. 

“I miss him,” she looks at his face, her eyes swollen, cheeks wet. Kane can see the red lines on her skin as she’s pressed her face to his uniform and the metal parts scratched her. He places a soft kiss on her forehead.  “I kept myself distracted as long as I could, but..." she takes a deep breath and freezes, then goes on in a much lower voice, "How I _think_ I feel about you might not be real, and it's not fair to you, Marcus.”

He caresses her back soothingly and then puts his arms around her, drawing closer, pressing her chest to his. Kane feels her sobs get quieter in his embrace but she’s still shaking, her wet eyes now pressed to his neck.

“Whatever happens to me, is not your fault, Abby.”

She doesn’t respond.

It takes them long enough to figure out that the surgery problem is simply – and to Kane’s relief and irritation - lost in translation. As much as Jackson has taught her, she’s still a grounder healer, and as good as she is, in her mind, a surgery on a badly wounded leg can only mean cutting that leg off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, totally not into Kabby lately. But this story ain't abandoned, there are several pre-written chapters, so I'll pick it up at some point.


End file.
